Forensic Fictions

Forensic Fictions is the first book-length critical study of William Faulkner's fictional depictions of the legal vocation and the practice of law. Examining Faulkner's lawyer characters in light of the southern storytelling tradition, Jay Watson argues that the forensic competence of the Faulknerian lawyer is a direct function of his skill as a raconteur. To trace the biographical and historical roots of Faulkner's lifelong preoccupation with the legal profession, Watson draws on contemporary scholarship in narrative, rhetoric, jurisprudence, legal and intellectual history, literary theory, and Lacanian psychoanalysis. His approach yields insightful readings of forensic characters and scenes from such works as "An Odor of Verbena," The Hamlet, "Wild Palms," Absalom, Absalom! and The Reivers. Watson shows the links between storytelling and the competence of Faulkner's legal characters by examining the intertextual logic that connects the two most important lawyers in the Yoknapatawpha fiction: the incompetent Horace Benbow and the more capable Gavin Stevens, whose entrance into Faulkner's oeuvre coincides with Benbow's untimely departure from it. Focusing on the nine novels in which these two characters appear, Watson traces the evolutionary process by which Stevens supplants Benbow. Three of the Stevens novels--Intruder in the Dust, Knight's Gambit, and Requiem for a Nun--from what Watson calls Faulkner's "forensic trilogy" and, when read together, constitute the writer's most sustained investigation of the rhetorical and ethical responsibilities of the lawyer-citizen. Faulkner, Watson argues, saw the forensic figure as a potential hybrid of homo loquens and homo politicus, capable of combing the roles of storyteller, rhetorician, and theatrical performer with those of critic, citizen, and ethical man. As such, this figure served as a provocative authorial surrogate through whom Faulkner could explore diverse and often contradictory aspects of his personal experience, his family background, his cultural heritage, and, most of all, his own artistic use of language.

This compilation of medical and forensic science questions from crime writers around the world provides insight into medical and forensic science as well as a glimpse into the writer’s creative mind. How do hallucinogenic drugs affect a blind person? Will snake venom injected into fruit cause death? How would you perform CPR in a helicopter? What happens when someone swallows razor blades? How long does it take blood to dry? Can DNA be obtained from a half-eaten bagel? D. P. Lyle, MD, answers these and many more intriguing questions. The book is a useful and entertaining resource for writers and screenwriters, helping them find the information they need to frame a situation and write a convincing description. TV viewers, readers who enjoy crime fiction, and those who want to know more about forensic science can keep up with the news and understand the science behind criminal investigation. From traumatic injuries to the coroner’s office, the questions and answers are divided into five parts, making it a compendium of the incredible information that lies within the world of medicine and forensics.

This book identifies, traces, and interrogates contemporary American culture's seemingly endless fascination with forensic science. Steenberg looks specifically at the gendered nature of expert scientific knowledge, as embodied by the ubiquitous character of the female investigator.

The first Temperance Brennan novel in the “cleverly plotted and expertly maintained series” (The New York Times Book Review) from the #1 internationally bestselling thriller writer Kathy Reichs. Her life is devoted to justice—even for those she never knew. In the year since Temperance Brennan left behind a shaky marriage in North Carolina, work has often preempted her weekend plans to explore Québec. When a female corpse is discovered meticulously dismembered and stashed in trash bags, Temperance detects an alarming pattern—and she plunges into a harrowing search for a killer. But her investigation is about to place those closest to her—her best friend and her own daughter—in mortal danger… “A genius at building suspense” (Daily News, New York), Kathy Reichs’s Temperance Brennan books are both “accomplished and chilling” (People) and “ripe with intricate settings and memorable characters” (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel).

This book highlights the contributions of leading forensic science practitioners, iconic figures who have been integral in both establishing current scientific and medicolegal practices and innovative evidence collection, testing, and analysis methods. Such professionals include Henry Lee, Michael Baden, William Bass, Jay Siegel, John Butler, Cyril Wecht, Vincent Di Maio, Marcella Fierro, Barry Fisher, and more. Previously unpublished interviews with these pioneers in the field, expressly undertaken for the purposes this book, examine the last 30 years—past trends that have shaped the field—as well as current and emerging trends that have, and will shape, the future of forensic science.

This is a book about the relationship between the development of forensic science in the nineteenth century and the invention of the new literary genre of detective fiction in Britain and America. Ronald R. Thomas examines the criminal body as a site of interpretation and enforcement in a wide range of fictional examples, from Poe, Dickens and Hawthorne through Twain and Conan Doyle to Hammett, Chandler and Christie. He is especially concerned with the authority the literary detective manages to secure through the 'devices' - fingerprinting, photography, lie detectors - with which he discovers the truth and establishes his expertise, and the way in which those devices relate to broader questions of cultural authority at decisive moments in the history of the genre. This is an interdisciplinary project, framing readings of literary texts with an analysis of contemporaneous developments in criminology, the rules of evidence, and modern scientific accounts of identity.

This compilation of medical and forensic science questions from crime writers around the world provides insight into medical and forensic science as well as a glimpse into the writerÕs creative mind. How do hallucinogenic drugs affect a blind person? Will snake venom injected into fruit cause death? How would you perform CPR in a helicopter? What happens when someone swallows razor blades? How long does it take blood to dry? Can DNA be obtained from a half-eaten bagel? D. P. Lyle, MD, answers these and many more intriguing questions. The book is a useful and entertaining resource for writers and screenwriters, helping them find the information they need to frame a situation and write a convincing description. TV viewers, readers who enjoy crime fiction, and those who want to know more about forensic science can keep up with the news and understand the science behind criminal investigation. From traumatic injuries to the coronerÕs office, the questions and answers are divided into five parts, making it a compendium of the incredible information that lies within the world of medicine and forensics.

How and when did forensic science originate in the UK? This question demands our attention because our understanding of present-day forensic science is vastly enriched through gaining an appreciation of what went before. A History of Forensic Science is the first book to consider the wide spectrum of influences which went into creating the discipline in Britain in the first part of the twentieth century. This book offers a history of the development of forensic sciences, centred on the UK, but with consideration of continental and colonial influences, from around 1880 to approximately 1940. This period was central to the formation of a separate discipline of forensic science with a distinct professional identity and this book charts the strategies of the new forensic scientists to gain an authoritative voice in the courtroom and to forge a professional identity in the space between forensic medicine, scientific policing, and independent expert witnessing. In so doing, it improves our understanding of how forensic science developed as it did. This book is essential reading for academics and students engaged in the study of criminology, the history of forensic science, science and technology studies and the history of policing.